It’s not exactly news that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been hesitant about going down the impeach road with the Trumpelstiltskin. She’s not sure that path will help the Democrats. And that’s been her first concern. But now even her patience has been exceeded.
The trigger has, of course, been Trumpelstiltskin’s extraordinarily feckless attempt to get the Ukranian prime minister to investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter. So, let’s review:
- On August 12, 2019, an unnamed intelligence official filed a whistleblower complaint with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (as required by law) alleging, in effect, that the President had communicated with the Prime Minister of Ukraine to get him to investigate Hunter Biden.
- It was then determined that in early July the Trump administration had withheld $400 million in aid to Ukraine. (The Trump administration released the military aid on September 12.)
- In the meantime the Trump administration refused to release the whistleblower report to Congress as required by law. (Trumpelstiltskin has now claimed he would release the unredacted transcript of the phone call, but we’ll see if that actually happens.)
This is such a brazen disregard of his Presidential duties, combined with former Trump campaign manager’s totally contemptuous testimony before Congress, that even Pelosi has lost her patience.
It’s clear that Trumpelstiltskin’s believes that he can just ignore Congress and refuse to cooperate in anything, and that way just ride out the rest of his term. But if the House does start a formal impeachment inquiry that enhances their investigative powers.